We usually put up the Christmas tree a day or two after Thanksgiving. I've learned over the years how to make it a happy and peaceful affair by doing my part and letting Carol do hers. My job is getting the tree and setting it up. Carol's part is doing the decorating and smacking me if I get in the road.
After slogging through waist deep snow, searching for the perfect tree, chopping it down... Actually I just got the box out of the attic and stuck the fake branches in the fake tree, but I did work up a sweat! My job done, I poured a glass of wine and sat down to watch the master at work.
I had forgotten that the first thing a master Christmas tree decorator does is to re-arrange the furniture, so I put my glass in a safe place and began sliding furniture back and forth around the living room until everything was in a harmonious Christmas feng shui position.
I retrieved my wine and sat back down, (in a new place,) and breathed a sigh of relief as Carol opened the first box of lights. “These don't work!” she said.
“I'll fix them.” I told her, setting my glass of untouched wine back down on the newly moved table. I took the tangled string of lights out to the kitchen and plugged them in.”You're right!” I yelled as I threw them into the trash, “Try another string!” Fortunately, there was an abundance of working lights and I watched and sipped as she draped and hung. Soon she was ready for the ornament stage.
For some reason our Christmas ornaments seem to breed and procreate in their boxes. Every year we winnow them out and give tons of them away, but when Christmas arrives there are still enough to decorate the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.
“I can't reach that,” she said, holding the top-of-the-tree ornament, and looking at me with a worried look on her face.
At last! I get to put a decoration on the tree, I thought. I shakily climbed up on a dining room chair, and with a lot of coaching from the maestro, bent one of the fake limbs straight up in the air and stuck the final ornament on our tree.
We put the empty boxes away, and I poured Carol a glass of vino.
“What do you think?” she asked, raising her glass and looking at the sparkling tree.
“It looks beautiful,” I said, “that ornament on the top really sets it off!”
